You might like life without refined sugar

This post concludes a series of posts I’ve written to participate in the Blog-a-Thon To End Sugar Addiction, which started Tuesday and ends on Monday, Halloween Day, perhaps America foremost sugar-driven holiday.

I have another opinion in this topic area that I like to flaunt because I have absolutely no fear that I’ll ever be proven wrong, even though I haven’t any data to back it:

If people were willing to actively avoid processed sugar for at least a month so that its traces could leave their body and they could experience life without the regular drip drip drip into their bloodstreams, a very significant portion of them — I conjecture between a third and a half — would choose not to go back. That might include you.

Far from being a measure of virtue, such choices would rest squarely on selfish grounds. Once I had compared life with and without refined sugars, I liked “without” better. Not only do I escape all the transient effects I cited earlier, but I am far less mercurial when my blood sugar isn’t swerving wildly according whatever I just ate.

Also, Dr. Atkins (yes, that one) pronounced me a pre-diabetic at age 16 but I never developed the condition — because, I’m convinced, I gave up refined sugar.

And there is that 155-pound weight loss I’m maintaining for about 20 years. I don’t attribute it solely to absence of refined sugar, but I do give it a leading role. In the 20 years before this 20 years, I lost more than 400 pounds but kept gaining it back. Though my diets didn’t encourage use of refined sugars, I didn’t have a blanket prohibition of them, either, so when I would “splurge” “just for dessert, just this once,” the substance would be back in my system and the cycle of craving would return.

I had no idea! — and neither do all the dietitians who advise clients to eat everything in moderation because "any plan based on deprivation can't possibly work." To me, this is akin to Dark Ages ignorance. Moderation can work for people who don’t have the sensitivity, but I'm saying that millions of Americans do have it, having been unknowlngly shoved toward it by the ubiquity of refined sugar.

And how are you going to know if you're one of those if you don’t investigate — by sampling life without? My “investigations” usually led me back up the scale, until I finally stopped trying to be friends with the stuff.

Just as I don’t say that everyone will react as I did, I don’t say that it was only my decisions around refined sugar that transformed not only by body shape but my complete existence. But is that the standard you want to insist upon: “If that one thing, alone, isn’t going to transform my existence, I’m not going to bother”?

Finally: Why am I so confident I’ll never be proven wrong on this point? Suggest to most people that they undertake this course and far more often than “I’ll start today!” or “Hmm, that’s interesting, I’ll think about it,” the response is “What, are you kidding? I’d rather die!”

What I’ve learned is that if I’m so completely attached to anything, I may want to consider if the attachment is serving me well.

Speaker, coach, and more Michael is a wellbeing innovator and coach, as well as a recognized leader on food-addiction awareness. He melds his skills with an intense personal story that he shares with groups, individuals, and in his two books, "Fat Boy Thin Man" and "Sustainable You." Inquire about how he can transform your next meeting, conference, or wellness event.